“I must thank her for coming to our defense,” Rain said. “But it is time to repair the damage this war has wrought—both on the city and among ourselves. There is much to be mended, on all sides.”

They spent all day doing just that, mending buildings and mending bridges with the Fey. Their first stop was the Hall of Truth and Healing, where Rain and Ellysetta met with Tenn and Venarra. The meeting was stiff and formal, but it passed without bloodshed or name calling. For a first step, that was enough.

They worked throughout the day, but with every wall they reconstructed, every weeping Fey they consoled, every stiff, cold-eyed warrior whose suspicions they allayed, Ellysetta realized that simply rescuing her sisters and parents from Eld wasn’t going to be enough. This Mage had to be stopped, and according to the Elves, she was the only one who could. Even if it cost her life.

Perhaps that was the real reason Illona Brighthand had sent them here. Not because Dharsa needed them, but because she needed Dharsa and the reminder that even though the war was over, her own battle was not yet done. Because Ellysetta needed a day without war to remember why it was necessary… and what she was fighting for.

“You said that when we defeated the Army of Darkness, we would go to Eld to save my parents,” Ellysetta reminded Rain as the afternoon drew to a close and the sun began to set. “That time has come. I don’t want my sisters, or my parents, to spend one more night than necessary in Eld hands. And I’m going with you.”

“Shei’tani.… You know I would give you the stars from the heavens if you asked it of me, but this…” Shadows turned lavender eyes to brooding violet. “Our bond is not complete. You bear five Mage Marks.”

“If we don’t find a way to defeat him, I may someday bear six.” She framed his face in her hands. “I have to do this, Rain. It’s what I was born for.” The chime she said the words aloud, she knew they were true. “We are Tairen Souls, shei’tan, you and I both. We are Defenders not just of the Fey but of the Light, including the Light that shines in good people everywhere—in my sisters and my parents, in Celierians… in the poor people of Eld who never had a choice for any life but servitude and Darkness. This High Mage must be stopped. Not just defeated and left in peace to grow strong again, but vanquished. That is our purpose. That is why we were born.”

“We should consult Shei’Kess. Perhaps it will—“

“Nei.” She shook her head and gave a sad smile. “The Eye can show us nothing we don’t already know. It’s what we feel here—” she tapped first her chest, then his, “—that matters. You heard the Elf queen. I am leinah thaniel. There are no fates I cannot change, but this fate is one I cannot change without you. You are my strength, Rain. You are the courage I’ve always lacked.”

He gave a choked laugh, and tears glittered in his eyes. “If I am your courage, then why does this idea of yours leave me so frightened?”

Her heart contracted, and she smiled at him, softly, through brimming eyes. “Because it is frightening, kem’san. Because it’s dangerous, risky, the odds so stacked against us it’s unlikely anyone could do this thing and live. And that’s why a Tairen Soul was born to do it—why we were born to do this.” She pressed her lips to his. “When a feyreisen finds his wings, he knows he was born to die protecting others. That is why we must go.”

He drew her closer, nestling her in his arms and leaning his head against hers. “When did you get so wise, Ellysetta kem’reisa?”

Celieria ~ Orest

12th day of Seledos

Rain and Ellysetta spent half the night in Dharsa, the other half in Fey’Bahren with the pride and the kitlings, who had grown a great deal in the last two months. In the morning, they flew back to Orest to meet with the lu’tan and devise a plan to rescue Ellysetta’s family and kill the High Mage of Eld.

Farel’s men had captured a wounded Mage and a handful of Eld soldiers, all of whom they held in a bubble of thirty-six fold weaves. A little Truthspeaking and the threat of being eaten alive by a tairen had encouraged the soldiers to talk. They told their captors about Vadim Maur’s main fortress where all magic-gifted prisoners were taken after their capture, and about how each Boura—each underground fortress of the Eld—contained a gateway to the Well of Souls that was kept open all the time.

The plan was to have one of the dahl’reisen open a portal and bring one of the Eld soldiers along to lead the Fey through the Well to wherever Ellysetta’s parents and sisters were being held. They would invade the Boura using the dahl’reisen invisibility weaves, free all the prisoners, and use Ellysetta’s connection to the High Mage to locate and kill him while they were there.

The “plan” had holes large enough to fly a tairen through—nei, an entire pride of tairen—but Rain couldn’t come up with anything better. So with a bit of instruction from the captured Mage, Farel successfully opened the portal to the Well of Souls. And into the Well, they went: Rain, Ellysetta, her quintet, a hundred lu’tan, and the Elden soldier as their guide.

The inside of the Well was an unpleasant place, dark and cold, full of whispers and distant shrieks and swirling pools of shadowy mist that the Eld advised them to avoid if they valued their lives. How he knew where to go, Ellysetta didn’t know, but later, it would occur to her that was a question she should have asked and gotten answered.

Because when they reached the gateway into Boura Fell, which appeared as a glowing red circle within the Well, their arrival did not come as the surprise they had intended. No sooner had they donned their invisibility weaves and slipped through the gateway into a large room, than the gateway closed behind them. A barrage of tiny darts and a burst of pale blue gas filled the air.